A long a$$ drive to make a long a$$ climb. I thought I was toast by the time I finished the approach. Let my partner lead P1 and by the time it was my turn to lead my head was back into it. Lead P2 (very easy) P4 (Spicy and long) a short P5 (only places 1 peice) and the interesting 4th class traverse to the true summit. My partner got the money pitch P6.

Successful climb & summit with Paul F.; trip was full definition of "mountaineering = nice!; Paul lead all the pitches of technical climb (thanks!); the 5.6 crack pitch on the blank face with lots of air was awesome!!; tough (for me) final move onto top-out of climb.

My lab and I started at Cattle Creek TH and then traveled up Horse Creek to above the first big talus pile (the unnecessary to climb heavily ducked one). We turned off the regular approach route way early and headed up the Maze area toward Cleaver Glacier on Sawtooth Ridge passing a nice tarn, a stream, Matterhorn Lake?, and a tower, eventually scrambling to above 11k elevation along the north edge of the Cleaver. Once scrambling options became greater than very mild class 3 near the notch, we backtracked some, including some glissading, and traversed below the Doodad area to below the base of the east Matterhorn couloir before traversing to another tarn, and then more talus slopes to Horse Creek Pass. After summitting, we headed down the Horse Creek Trail to Mono Village. The extra scrambling early on the way up made for a very long day, but the extra sights seen were worthwhile.

Bob Shonerd and I put up a new route (Direct North Face, 5.7+) this season which avoids the looser lower sections of the North Arete. We established 55 - 60m rappels at every belay and were down in minutes. Excellent climbing!

I wanted to bag a last fall peak before heading up to the NW on a road trip. Had a freak snow storm in the Sierras a couple days before but decided to try the Matterhorn anyway because of easy access from Twin Lakes. It was a beautiful sunny day. Got only up to about 8500' and was post-holing through to my waist. Guess I'll have to try another time.

Great trip- watched summer turn to fall turn to early winter over night. The snow field has retreated off the gully so access without crampons wasn't so bad. Beautiful summit, though snowing when we got there! Turned to rain as we descended all the way back to Twin Lakes. Excellent weekend.

A beautiful day hike up the Horse Creek drainage to the pass and on up but lord what a scree slog for the last mile or so. Round trip 12 hours. Plan to traverse the Sawtooth Crest next so this hike was good recon. Great summit perch and killer steep view back down toward Twin Lakes and out to the east.

Day climb from Twin Lakes. Without any more beta than is implied in the name of the route, I tried to stick to the arete and keep technical climbing difficulties less than 5.7. Though at the beginning I started off left of center. As pointed out by most other ascensionists, there is a lot of loose rock down low but it gets much more solid up high.